Article 22

Ustaad Purbayan Chatterjee aptly says that the Bengal Classical Music Festival is the Woodstock of classical music. It IS, minus the psychedelics. Then again, as I leave the business class section and walk my way back to the economy class, I smell, both figuratively and literally (unless my nostrils are out of commission), the true Woodstock, con the plethora of flower children. 

So, in the expanse of the beautiful Army Stadium and under the starry skies (sorry, not in the business class section), there is total harmony in the love for music, good food, the arts and the simple joy of mingling.

Hence, the seats are all taken up – the majority by warm bodies and the rest by bags (I thought they were not allowed in beyond a certain size), brochures, the all favorite shawls and even pieces of tissue paper. Along with the classical musical instruments on display, these artifacts may perhaps also be displayed as innovative means of securing the beachhead – a more pacifist version of the US Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on the shores of Iwo Jima. 

I quickly display Article 22 of the Festival brochure to a seated person holding a fleet of seats: "No seats can be reserved for anyone by keeping bags, shawls or anything else". The response from the man holding the fort: "Yeah right! And I'm Uncle Sam!" 

There are two types of phantom occupants of these 'occupied' seats – (1) "Kilroy was here" or (2) "Godot will come". Assuming 'Kilroy' has gone to the loo, I ask with my best smile on as though a child pleading for candy: "Please, PLEASE, can I sit here? I promise to leave as soon as your friend comes back from the restroom." Oh, I also use my best Queen's English – somehow that works. In bygone days, the American twang worked like a charm too. Not anymore, with the advent of a phenomenon called Donald Trump.

I thank Angela Merkel for giving me refugee status by allowing me to replace the crumpled paper on the seat with my tired behind. Kilroy became Godot, thank heavens, allowing me to enjoy 90 minutes of the mesmerising tabla duet. At the end, I'm one of the few to give a standing ovation, myself being a tabalchee, and I then turn to 'Angela': "Thank you for letting me sit here. And I think your friend [Kilroy turned Godot] sure has some serious dysentery." 

See? A smile (ok, some S@ifurs too) works like magic. It's pointless to flip out the mobile phone like the fastest gun in High Noon, only to end up firing a blank as that assertive call to the big shot never goes through with 20,000 people clogging the radio waves. Leave the adrenaline rush for the sarod crescendo.

Never in the history of mankind has there been such a plethora of free flowing 'yes'es – the 'yes' in response to exactly the same number of the one single question: "Is this seat taken?" Like the canine in Pavlov's experiment, those seated with mom on one side and Mum water bottle on the other, are quickly conditioned to preemptively respond with an emphatic 'yes' to the stimulus of merely seeing a stranger stop to just take a glance at the apparently empty seat. Even Aung San Suu Kyi, if sitting there, would have said without batting her eyelids: "Yes, yes, YES!" to the question "Will you solve the Rohingya crisis once and for all?"

But it is all part of the package of being in an oasis within a Sahara of fear to congregate and enjoy so much more beyond just the wonderful music. As such, I happily smile back at a curt "Yes! [The seat is taken]" and even happily give up my seat at the sight of an unhappy music enthusiast seeking landing clearance, because we simply have no idea how many people were behind making this little heaven possible. Article 22, you are bent, you are broken and yet I, if not we all, smile. It is a small price to pay for so much to imbibe in. 

Thank you for the music. And who says that the best things in life don't come for free? 

The writer is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club. E-mail: naveed@naveedmahbub.com